Rudolf Hess

Rudolf Hess should not be confused with another prominent Nazi, Rudolf Höß (also spelled Höss or Hoess.)

Trial and life imprisonment

Hess was detained by the British for the duration of the war, then was a defendant at the Nuremberg Trials for crimes against peace and given a life sentence. His last words before the tribunal were, "I have no regrets." For decades he was addressed only as prisoner number seven. Following the 1966 releases of Baldur von Schirach and Albert Speer he was the lone remaining inmate of Spandau Prison. Guards reportedly said he degenerated mentally and lost most of his memory. Many historians and legal commentators have expressed opinions that his long imprisonment was an injustice. In 1950, Winston Churchill wrote,

Related Topics:
Nuremberg Trials - Crimes against peace - 1966 - Baldur von Schirach - Albert Speer - Spandau Prison

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:"Reflecting upon the whole of the story, I am glad not to be responsible for the way in which Hess has been and is being treated. Whatever may be the moral guilt of a German who stood near to Hitler, Hess had, in my view, atoned for this by his completely devoted and frantic deed of lunatic benevolence. He came to us of his own free will, and, though without authority, had something of the quality of an envoy. He was a medical and not a criminal case, and should be so regarded."

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In 1977 Britain's chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Sir Hartley Shawcross, characterized Hess' continued imprisonment as a "scandal."

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On 17 August, 1987 he died under Four Power imprisonment at Spandau Prison in West Berlin. By all accounts he was found in a "summer house" in a garden located in a secure area of the prison with an electrical cord (an extension for a reading lamp) wrapped around his neck. His death was ruled a suicide by self-asphixiation, accomplished by tying the cord to a window latch in the summer house. Hess had attempted suicide at least twice before, in 1941 at Mytchett Place and in 1977 by cutting his wrists with a table knife. He was buried in Wunsiedel.

Related Topics:
17 August - 1987 - Four Power - Spandau Prison - West Berlin - Suicide - Wunsiedel

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His son, Wolf Rüdiger Hess, an unapologetic Nazi and fervent believer in Adolf Hitler, maintained until his own death that his father was murdered by serving members of the British SAS.

Related Topics:
Wolf Rüdiger Hess - Nazi - SAS

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